Labour in Irish History

by James Connolly

To permit a small class, whether alien
or native, to obtain a monopoly of the land is an intolerable
injustice; its continued enforcement is neither more nor less a
robbery of the hard and laborious earnings of the poor.
-- Irish People. (Organ of the Fenian Brotherhood)
July 30, 1864.

In the preceding chapter we pointed out
that the Williamite war in Ireland, from Derry to Limerick, was
primarily a war for mastery over the Irish people, and that all
questions of national or industrial freedom were ignored by the
leaders on both sides as being presumably what their modern
prototypes would style `beyond the pale of practical politics'.

When the nation had once more settled down
to the pursuits of peace, and all fear of a Catholic or Jacobite
rising had departed from the minds of even the most timorous
squireen, the unfortunate tenantry of Ireland, whether Catholic or
Protestant, were enlightened upon how little difference the war had
made to their position as a subject class. The Catholic who had been
so foolish as to adhere to the army of James could not, in the
nature of things, expect much consideration from his conquerors --
and he received none -- but he had the consolation of seeing that
the rank and file of his Protestant enemies were treated little, if
at all, better than himself. When the hungry horde of adventurers
who had brought companies to the service of William had glutted
themselves with the plunder for which they had crossed the Channel,
they showed no more disposition to remember the claims of the common
soldier -- by the aid of whose sword they had climbed to power --
than do our present rulers when they consign to the workhouse the
shattered frames of the poor fools who, with murder and pillage,
have won for their masters empire in India or Africa.

Before long the Protestant and Catholic
tenants were suffering one common oppression. The question of
political supremacy having been finally decided, the yoke of
economic slavery was now laid unsparingly upon the backs of the
labouring people. All religious sects suffered equally from this
cause. The Penal Laws then in operation against the Catholics did
indeed make the life of the propertied Catholics more insecure than
would otherwise have been the case; but to the vast mass of the
population the misery and hardship entailed by the working out of
economic laws were fraught with infinitely more suffering than it
was at any time within the power of the Penal Laws to inflict. As a
matter of fact, the effect of the latter code in impoverishing
wealthly Catholics has been much overrated. The class interests,
which at all times unite the propertied section of the community,
operated, to a large extent, to render impossible the application of
the power of persecution to its full legal limits. Rich Catholics
were quietly tolerated, and generally received from the rich
Protestants an amount of respect and forbearance which the latter
would not at any time extend to their Protestant tenantry or
work-people. So far was this true that, like the Jew, some Catholics
became notorious as moneylenders, and in the year 1763 a bill was
introduced into the Irish House of Commons to give greater
facilities to Protestants wishing to borrow money from Catholics.
The bill proposed to enable Catholics to become mortgagees of the
landed estates in order that Protestants wishing to borrow money
could give a mortgage upon their lands as security to the Catholic
leader. The bill was defeated, but its introduction serves to show
how little the Penal Laws had operated to prevent the accumulation
of wealth by the Catholic propertied classes.

But the social system thus firmly rooted in
the soil of Ireland -- and accepted as righteous by the ruling class
irrespective of religion -- was a greater enemy to the prosperity
and happiness of the people than any legislation religious bigotry
could devise. Modern Irish politicians, inspired either by a
blissful unconsciousness of the facts of history, or else sublimely
indifferent to its teachings, are in the habit of tracing the misery
of Ireland to the Legislative Union as its source, but the slightest
possible acquaintance with ante-Union literature will reveal a
record of famine, oppression, and injustice, due to economic causes,
unsurpassed at any other stage of modern Irish history. Thus Dean
Swift, writing in 1729, in that masterpiece of sarcasm entitled A
Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of the Poor People in
Ireland from becoming a Burden on their Parents or Country, and for
making them Beneficial to the Public, was so moved by the
spectacle of poverty and wretchedness that, although having no love
for the people, for whom, indeed, he had no better name than `the
savage old Irish', he produced the most vehement and bitter
indictment of the society of his day, and the most striking picture
of hopeless despair, that literature has yet revealed. Here is in
effect his Proposal:

"It is a melancholy object to those
who walk through this great town, or travel in the country, when
they see the streets, the roads, and cabin doors crowded with
beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six
children all in rags, and importuning every passenger for an
alms.... I, do, therefore, offer it to public consideration that
of the hundred and twenty thousand children already computed,
twenty thousand may be reserved for breed... that the remaining
hundred thousand may at a year old be offered in sale to the
persons of quality and fortune through the kingdom, always
advising the mother to let them suck plentifully in the last month
so as to render them plump and fat for a good table. A child will
make two dishes at an entertainment for friends, and when the
family dines alone the fore or hind quarters will make a
reasonable dish, and seasoned with a little pepper or salt, will
be very good boiled on the fourth day, especially in winter...I
have already computed the charge of nursing a beggar's child (in
which list I reckon all cottagers, labourers, and four-fifths
of the farmers), to be about two shillings per annum, rags
included; and I believe no gentleman would refuse to give ten
shillings for the carcase of a good, fat child, which, as I have
said, will make four dishes of excellent, nutritious meat."

Sarcasm, truly, but how terrible must have
been the misery which made even such sarcasm permissible! Great as
it undoubtedly was, it was surpassed twelve years later in the
famine of 1740, when no less a number than 400,000 are estimated to
have perished of hunger or of the diseases which follow in the wake
of hunger. This may seem an exaggeration, but the statement is amply
borne out by contemporary evidence. Thus Bishop Berkeley, of the
Anglican Church, writing to Mr. Thomas Prior, of Dublin, in 1741,
mentions that `The other day I heard one from the county of Limerick
say that whole villages were entirely dispeopled. About two months
since I heard Sir Richard Cox say that five hundred were dead in the
parish, though in a country, I believe, not very populous'. And a
pamphlet entitled The Groans of Ireland, published in
1741 asserts `The universal scarcity was followed by fluxes and
malignant fevers, which swept off multitudes of all sorts, so that
whole villages were laid waste'.

This famine, be it remarked, like all
modern famine, was solely attributable to economic causes; the poor
of all religions and politics were equally sufferers; the rich of
all religions and politics were equally exempt. It is also
noteworthy, as illustrating the manner in which the hireling scribes
of the propertied classes have written history, while a voluminous
literature has arisen round the Penal Laws -- a subject of merely
posthumous interest -- a matter of such overwhelming importance,
both historically and practically, as the predisposing causes of
Irish famine can, as yet, claim no notice except scanty and
unavoidable references in national history.

The country had not recovered from the
direful effects of this famine when a further economic development
once more plunged the inhabitants into blackest despair. Disease
having attacked and destroyed great quantities of cattle in England,
the aristocratic rulers of that country -- fearful lest the ensuing
high price of meat should lead to a demand for higher wages on the
part of the working class in England -- removed the embargo off
Irish cattle, meat, butter and cheese at the English ports, thus
partly establishing free trade in those articles between the two
countries. The immediate result was that all such provisions brought
such a price in England that tillage farming in Ireland became
unprofitable by comparison, and every effort was accordingly made to
transform arable lands into sheep-walks or grazing lands. The
landlord class commenced evicting their tenants; breaking up small
farms, and even seizing upon village common lands and pasture
grounds all over the country with the most disastrous results to the
labouring people and cottiers generally. Where a hundred families
had reaped as sustenance from their small farms, or by hiring out
their labour to the owners of large farms, a dozen sheperds now
occupied their places. Immediately their sprung up throughout
Ireland numbers of secret societies in which the dispossessed people
strove by lawless acts and violent methods to restrain the greed of
their masters, and to enforce their own right to life. They met in
large bodies, generally at midnight, and proceed to tear down
enclosures; to hough cattle; to dig up and so render useless the
pasture lands; to burn the houses of the sheperds; and in short, to
terrorise their social rulers into abandoning the policy of grazing
in favour of tillage, and to give more employment to the labourers
and more security to the cottier. These secret organisations assumed
different names and frequently adopted different methods, and it is
now impossible to tell whether they possessed any coherent
organisation or not. Throughout the South they were called Whiteboys,
from the practice of wearing white shirts over their clothes when on
their nocturnal expeditions. About the year 1762 they posted their
notices on conspicuous places in the country districts -- notably,
Cork, Waterford, Limerick, and Tipperary -- threatening vengeance
against such persons as had incurred their displeasure as graziers,
evicting landlords, etc.

These proclamations were signed by an
imaginary female, sometimes called the `Sive Oultagh' sometimes
`Queen Sive', sometimes they were in the name of `Queen Sive and Her
Subjects'. Government warred upon these poor wretches in the most
vindictive manner: hanging, shooting, transporting without mercy;
raiding villages at dead of night for suspected Whiteboys, and
dragging the poor creatures before magistrates who never
condescended to hear any evidence in favour of the prisoners, but
condemned them to whatever punishments their vindictive class spirit
or impaired digestion might prompt.

The spirit of the ruling class against
those poor slaves in revolt may be judged by two incidents
exemplifying how Catholic and Protestant proprietors united to
fortify injustice and preserve their privileges, even at a time when
we have been led to believe that the Penal Laws formed an
insuperable barrier against such Union. In the year 1762 the
Government offered the sum of £100 for the capture of the first
five Whiteboy Chiefs. The Protestant inhabitants of the city of Cork
offered in addition £300 for the Chief, and £50 for each of his
first five accomplices arrested. Immediately the wealthy Catholics
of the same city added to the above sums a promise of £200 for the
chief and £40 for each of his first five subordinates. This was at
a time when an English governor, Lord Chesterfield, declared that if
the military had killed half as many landlords as they did Whiteboys
they would have contributed more effectually to restore quiet, a
remark which conveys some slight idea of the carnage made among the
peasantry. Yet, Flood, the great Protestant `patriot,' he of whom
Davis sings --

Bless Harry Flood, who nobly stood
By us through gloomy years.

in the Irish House of Commons of 1763
fiercely denounced the Government for not killing enough of the
Whiteboys. He had called it `clemency'.